George Tenet interviewed by John Stewart

Enjoy

Impeachment?

Where is the buzz on Impeachment these days? look no further and check out this link.

The Buzz

Bill Moyers is BACK

Legendary broadcaster Bill Moyers returns to PBS in this new series, which also features a blog and a site with free transcripts and clips. Bill Moyers has only been blogging for like, a week, and he's already the blogosphere's favorite blogger! He's that sexy.

Bill's Site

Watch the first episode on selling the war, and how The relatively small Knight-Ridder outfit consistently got it right. While the Washington Post and the NY Times got it wrong. Moyers does a very good job at pointing this out.

The Cost of WAR

Justice Dept. Aide Not Willing To Testify

...yeah, you work for the 'Justice' department and you are not willing to stand up and tell the Truth? Not even in a Private meeting with Congressmen/women? What does that say about you as an individual? as a public employee? as the highest ranking aide to the the AG? and a former counsel to the White house?

Actually, it speaks volumes, doesn't it?

Full Article


A snippit...

House Democrats on Tuesday asked a top Justice Department aide to come to Capitol Hill for a private interview in the next week on the firing of federal prosecutors, arguing that she cannot simply refuse to testify on the matter.

Monica Goodling, who has said she would assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid appearing at Senate hearings, must tell Congress which specific questions she's refusing to answer, Democrats said in a letter to her lawyer.

Goodling was senior counsel to embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and was the department's White House liaison before she took a leave earlier this month amid the uproar over the ouster of eight U.S. attorneys.

Senate Judiciary Committee members, meanwhile, are pressing Gonzales to say how he plans to deal with Goodling taking the Fifth Amendment. Her action, they say, means he can't fulfill his pledge to make Justice employees available for questioning under oath.

"Who do we talk to at the Department of Justice? The office of the Attorney General appears to be hopelessly conflicted," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary chairman, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said in a letter to Gonzales released Tuesday.

Privatizing a Public Resource: WATER

Full Article and Further Info

Water, like air, is a necessity of human life. It is also, according to Fortune magazine, "One of the world's great business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th."

In the past ten years, three giant global corporations have quietly assumed control over the water supplied to almost 300 million people in every continent of the world. A 12-month investigation by journalists in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America shows that the results range from questionable to disastrous. And it shows how well-meaning municipal governments in the U.S. and Canada can become vulnerable to the persuasive techniques of these high-powered corporate giants.

National Wildlife Refuges Suffer Setbacks

Full Article

Faced with a $2.5 billion budget shortfall, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is eliminating hundreds of jobs, cutting back programs and leaving more than 200 national wildlife refuges unstaffed.

In all, the agency is planning to cut 565 jobs from wildlife refuges by 2009 — a 20 percent reduction.

The national refuge system encompasses 547 wildlife refuges and more than 96 million acres in all 50 states, attracting more than 40 million visitors a year.

Environmentalists say the staffing cuts — which follow two years of reductions — will leave an already lean work force depleted and result in a decrease in habitat management, restoration projects and education projects. More than 200 wildlife refuges across the country will be unstaffed.

"Our national wildlife refuges are literally crumbling before our eyes. Across the country we're seeing how the culmination of years of negligent funding devastates these special places," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

William Reffalt, director of the National Wildlife Refuge System in the 1980s, lamented the deterioration in the refuge system, which celebrated its 104th anniversary this week.

"Our nation had the foresight to establish these sanctuaries to conserve fish and wildlife, but we are failing to provide the ongoing stewardship that is required," he said. "We need leadership in the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt," who established the first wildlife refuge in Florida in 1903.

..snip...

"If the Service does not act decisively now, it will become unable to effectively operate most national wildlife refuges within a few years, even if budgets remain level," said David Eisenhauer, an agency spokesman.

The job cuts should increase efficiency and free up funding for refuge management and operations, Eisenhauer said.

But critics said leaving refuges unstaffed could lead to problems with invasive species — and increased crime or vandalism on the rustic sites, many of which are within an hour's drive of a major city

"In this day and age, no land can really be left alone," said Noah Matson, director of federal lands programs for Defenders of Wildlife. About 8 million refuge acres nationwide are infested with invasive species such as beetles and carp, Matson said.

The cuts also mean fewer law enforcement officers. In the Pacific region, only six officers will patrol a four-state area. In Oregon, just one full-time officer patrols the entire coastline, with a half-dozen wildlife refuges.

"That's just pathetic," Matson said.

..snip...

About 221 refuges will be unstaffed after the staffing reductions are finished, Eisenhauer said. All refuges will continue to be managed, he said, although some will become unstaffed "satellite units" of larger refuge complexes with no day-to-day management.